


Adjournment

by spicedpiano



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Airplane Sex, Angry Sex, Bathroom Sex, Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Chess, Chess Metaphors, Ex Sex, Implied Unrequited Charles Xavier/Raven Darkholme, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Introspection, Kink Meme, M/M, Mile High Club, Missing Scene, Past Erik Lehnsherr/Mystique, Rough Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:33:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1690139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicedpiano/pseuds/spicedpiano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>adjournment</i>, n. - a chess term referring to the suspension of a chess game with the intention to finish it later.</p><p>Or, what happened during the chess game, on the way to Paris.</p><p>(Canon deleted/continued scene.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adjournment

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to **Tahariel** for beta-ing! My first ever canon fic in the XMFC/DOFP fandom, and hope to have more. :)
> 
> Written for the kink-meme prompt [Charles/Erik mile high club. Because Charles and Erik totally had sex on that plane.](http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/11912.html?thread=22739336#t22739336)
> 
> \--
> 
> ETA: A Chinese translation of this fic has been posted [ here](http://www.mtslash.com/thread-127273-1-1.html) by the very talented Mozzie!

Charles moved the pieces carefully. His fingers hesitated every time, sometimes just for a second, almost flinching back before sliding each player into place. It was noticeable, even if neither of them had acknowledged it. Maybe he’s rustier than he’d thought. Or maybe he just couldn’t quite bring himself to feel smooth steel beneath his touch and know that Erik would feel it as well, as keenly and as intimately as if Charles were pressing his fingers to Erik’s own skin. 

If Erik was paying attention to that kind of thing, it didn’t show; Erik sat with his lips pressed into a thin line, his gaze more often on the board than on Charles. Occasionally Charles would catch him looking up, glancing at him with quick little motions that he undoubtedly thought Charles didn’t notice. Probably there were a thousand more of these little looks going unseen; Charles used to pride himself on his observational skills, but he was a very different man, then. 

Erik was holding a piece — a knight — slowly turning it in midair with his power, and it was only when Charles looked away from the piece that he saw Erik was looking at him again, pale eyes fixed on his from across the board. 

“What?” Charles said. He hated the way Erik’s gaze made him feel, like he was still that young, naïve thing that believed so strongly in the good in Erik. He had been a fool.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve done this,” Erik said, his hand waving at the board. 

“Yes, Erik, insightful as ever, thank you,” Charles said. Suddenly he felt bone-tired, as if Erik had drained the very marrow from him. He used to have a great deal of patience for Erik, but sitting in this plane across from him it was slow to come, dredged up from resources Charles had forgotten existed. Erik apologized, he reminded himself. He knew what that meant for him. He knew how Erik had trained himself not to feel regret, because regret was weakness, and Erik knew weakness could be fatal. Some darker part of Charles argued that he deserved more than what Erik gave him, that after all this, all Erik took from him, Erik owed him — what he owed him, Charles didn’t know, but _more._

The chess piece had stopped rotating, the only indication Erik heard him speak at all, Erik’s eyes back on the board and his face carefully neutral. Charles forced himself to let the air out of his lungs, a slow sigh. “I’m sorry,” he said. 

“Don’t.” Erik set the piece down at last, metal clicking against wood. “I’m not so fragile.”

“Of course you aren’t,” Charles muttered, and he took his turn a few seconds later, pushing his own knight into play. “You’re Magneto. Unbendable and unbreakable. A veritable fortress of a man.”

“I’m none of that, either, and you know it. Charles — ”

“Eleven years,” Charles said, talking past him as if he hadn’t heard Erik at all, sitting back in his chair and meeting Erik’s eyes. “It’s been eleven years since I last played. Is that what you wanted to know? You were moderately subtle about getting at it, I’ll give you that.”

Erik glanced over his shoulder, clearly concerned about Logan, but the man had not moved an inch from where he sat apparently asleep in his seat. Charles smiled at Erik, knowing the expression came across small and spiteful but not able to bring himself to care, and crossed his arms over his chest. 

“I was just making conversation,” Erik said, but his voice was low and roughened around the consonants, the edge of his accent making itself known. “Shall we play in silence, then?” One of Erik’s bishops slid forward to b5, quick but perfectly-controlled. The Ruy Lopez opening, a classic move, white aiming to ravage black’s pawn structure. Fitting, Charles thought, and he almost laughed out loud, because Erik always had a flair for the dramatic and the allegorical, even unintentionally.

He tried to fix his attention on the game but it felt like a lost cause, now that he had been reminded of Raven. Everything reminded him of her, lately. His memories were bittersweet after all these years and tied to the most mundane and inconsequential things, because even in absentia Raven refused to be ignored. 

He had wondered before how long Erik might have been working her. If even while he and Erik were — together — Erik had already been laying the steps to guide her to him, leading her down the path of a relationship Charles had assumed was paternal at most. What Erik must have done to her in that short year before he was arrested, to tear her apart down to her very foundations and rebuild her in his image, make her the perfect soldier for Erik’s eternal war …. Charles felt sick thinking about it. Knowing that Erik turned out to be right about the government didn’t make it better (but no, no, _that_ Charles didn’t want to think about at all, better to acknowledge the simple truth of it and do what he must to prevent that future from happening; the nasty twist in the pit of his stomach was not constructive). 

Erik was still waiting for Charles to make his next move on the board. Charles reached for his drink and took a sip, and then another, larger one. He thought, _there isn’t enough alcohol in the world for this,_ but they would be landing in Paris within a few short hours and he couldn’t afford to lose his composure. He moved his pawn and turned his gaze out the window to stare over the slow rumble of clouds, a white expanse that completely blocked out the landscape below. 

Erik said he’d been with Raven. _With_ her, and Charles had the distinct sense that Erik meant something very specific when he used that word. Was that how he’d done it, then? Lured her with sex? The flattery of a man who lusted after her natural form in a way that he, her brother, never could? Was that all it took, then, to unravel years of their lives woven together? The one thing, the only thing, she wanted from him that he refused to give. Erik would have touched her so avariciously. He loved physical mutations, the more different from baseline human the better. When Charles closed his eyes he could see Erik’s hands on her, and he knew from experience how easy it was to be seduced by that: how Erik made one feel like the only person on earth, as if them being together made everything that had once been broken whole again.

He went for the Scotch again while Erik made his move and then told himself not to touch his glass for the next two plays; stay sober, stop thinking about it. Erik had apologized, he told himself again. It didn’t undo anything, but it was not insignificant. And he was here, now, even if only because of Raven, looking at Charles across the chessboard like he was trying to peel back the layers of Charles’ skin to see his heart. Charles had almost managed to forget the way it felt to be the object of that attention, but the shiver that trembled down at the base of his spine brought it all back and sent an uneasy wave through the pit of his stomach.

But Charles wasn’t that person anymore — the young man who wore his heart on his sleeve and gave himself fully to Erik, thinking himself jaded and wise to the ways of the world when really — when really he had no idea what it meant to feel true loss. Grief through the lens of telepathy was a pale reflection of the real thing, and when Erik left and took Raven with him he ripped loose something fundamental in Charles that nothing would repair. The only thing Charles knew how to do anymore was dull it, even though the wound still throbbed, like a systemic infection he kept at bay with half-doses of an ineffective cure, the disease just waiting to take over the second he let himself falter.

“Is this what you did in prison, then?” Charles said, breaking the silence even though Erik was the one who imposed it. “Reviewed the old master games and played chess?”

The corner of Erik’s mouth tilted up. “Sometimes,” he said. “None of the guards were any good, though.” He took a swallow of his own drink. “I meditated. At first the sensory deprivation was … very unpleasant. But my control improved.” He lifted one brow, still holding Charles’ gaze. “You can imagine my wonder the first time I realized I could sense the earth’s magnetic field.”

Charles snorted, and moved his knight again. “You could sense the geomagnetic field, but you couldn’t figure out how to use it to break out of prison yourself?”

“If I wanted to break out, do you think I would have let myself get caught in the first place?” 

That — now, _that_ gave Charles pause, his fingertips only-just resting on the edge of his glass where he’d reached for his drink again. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you’ll have to explain this to me. Why would you _let_ yourself be imprisoned?”

“Every cause needs its martyr.”

“And so, one year after you left me, you and Raven, you decide a presidential assassination is the cross you want to die on?”

Erik shook his head. “As good a cross as any. I brought mutants into the public eye, didn’t I? After the trial, mutants knew who they were, that there were others, and that we were powerful. It served its purpose.” Erik still hadn’t looked away from him, his eyes bright with the passion Charles once found so magnetic. That he still did, damn him, even now that he knew what it represented. 

“There were other ways, Erik — what you call a martyr, anyone else would call a villain.” Charles did take that next sip of his drink now, and barely noticed the burn of the alcohol on the way down. 

“Fine, a villain, then. The war is coming for us either way, and it might as well be on our terms. But you were always meant to be there opposite me, the ‘white knight’ of mutantkind.” Erik leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees and his glass clasped between his hands, Charles pinned down by his eyes until he was forced to look away.

“But I wasn’t there, and you blame me for all the deaths that happened in your absence. I know. You said as much already.” An implication that still stung, hot and sharp below Charles’ sternum. Their loss still pained him as much today as it did when he first heard about the deaths.

“We are both to blame,” Erik said. “We failed them, both of us.”

“Yes,” Charles said, staring fiercely out the window and wishing he didn’t believe Erik’s words. 

“But there _is_ hope.” There was the clink of glass on wood; Erik had set his drink down. His voice was softer now, almost gentle, the tone very nearly an apology in itself. “If we stop Mystique, we can make it so the future that Logan spoke of never happens. So many mutant lives can still be saved.” 

Logan, fifty-years-future Logan, had said that in the future Charles and Erik were together — that they, both of them, had sent him back here to change the past. Charles wondered if this means Erik had changed, or if he himself did. Or if their old differences were just pushed aside to fight a common enemy.

Did it even matter? Charles felt strung-out and exhausted, drained from the bone. Finally, he turned back to look at Erik, who looked … he looked so much like the man Charles had thought he knew, as if the past eleven years had left no mark on him at all. Charles’ throat tightened and he was suddenly too aware of the heat behind his own eyes, sharp and stinging. 

“It’s your move,” Charles said. He watched Erik reach forward and castle, using his hands instead of his power for once. Charles tried not to let his gaze linger on Erik’s fingers, long and elegant and familiar despite the years that had passed. 

Erik leaned back in his chair, bringing his Scotch with him. Charles jerked his eyes down to keep from staring at Erik’s lips on the glass, or the shift in his throat as he swallowed. 

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he said, and Erik didn’t respond, just watched as Charles put his glass on the table and got up; his legs felt shaky beneath him and he had to grab onto the wall to keep his balance, still feeling Erik’s eyes on his back all the way past Logan and down the little hall, the feeling relenting only when Charles had closed the lavatory door behind him.

Charles turned the latch and leaned against the sink counter, finally letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. His heart was racing in his chest, pounding against his sternum; he felt bruised all over and wished more than ever for the dizzy blur of intoxication, just so he could numb this all away, but he was utterly and painfully sober. He imagined he could feel his body breaking down around him, a quiver shuddering through his limbs. Releasing another shaking sigh, he leaned his head back against the mirror and shut his eyes, but it didn’t do any good. 

He startled, jerking his head up as the metal latch on the lavatory door turned, and he didn’t have any time at all to react before Erik stepped into the tiny bathroom and pulled the door shut again. The chamber was not as small as a commercial airliner’s would have been, but even so Erik was close, so close, his body pressed up against Charles’ and his face scant inches away; when he exhaled Charles felt the heat of his breath against his nose and mouth. Erik’s pupils were wide dark circles and Charles was bracketed in by his arms on either side, Erik’s hands grasping the edge of the counter, and Charles couldn’t escape even if he wanted to.

“Go away,” Charles said, voice shaking, but as always Erik didn’t listen. His hands were on Charles’ hips, big and warm, thumbs catching on the edge of Charles’ belt; there was no room to lift his arms between them to push Erik away, and Charles ended up grabbing fists of Erik’s shirt at his sides. “Erik — ”

“Quiet,” Erik murmured. “They’ll hear.”

Charles didn’t get a chance to respond; Erik’s mouth closed against his, hot and forceful and like something out of his more painful dreams. Charles made a desperate noise, caught between Erik and the sink as Erik pushed forward, releasing Erik’s shirt to grapple with the counter instead, trying to keep on his feet. Erik sucked on his lower lip and Charles’ thoughts went hazy, darkening to blood-red and throbbing beneath his skin. One of Erik’s legs was between his, the outside of Erik’s boot pressed against the inner edge of Charles’ shoe, and the press of Erik’s leg against his was a long line of heat from his ankle, up the inside of his thigh and coiling in his groin. 

Erik’s tongue slid into his mouth, licking against Charles’, and Charles finally released the counter to grab onto Erik again, digging his fingers into his back like he wanted to leave marks, biting down on Erik’s lip until he heard the sharp intake of air, Erik hissing in pain. Charles surged up, a sudden burst of strength that forced Erik back a step, his shoulders hitting the door loudly and Erik whispered, “Careful,” and twisted his hand in Charles’ hair, holding him in place to kiss him again.

It was fast and needy and anxious, their hands on each other trying to touch everything all at once, Erik’s elbow hitting the wall and Charles nearly knocking the soap dispenser out of place. Charles remembered fucking Erik like this once, in a grimy gas station bathroom outside Toledo, Erik’s hands braced against the stall door and Charles thrusting into him from behind, rough and hard; Erik’s power melted the lock and any interested passerby found the toilet labeled out of order. 

Now there was even less room to maneuver, and this wasn’t the hot, frenzied sex of two men only just discovering each other’s bodies, with the whole world, their entire lifetimes open before them, Charles already half in-love and convinced those bonds would never break. No. This was regret and hurt and anger, knotted together where once their ties were iron-forged, Erik tugging his shirt collar aside to bite his skin like he was claiming him, Charles’ eyes clenched shut so hard it hurt. 

Charles wanted Erik. He refused to _need_ him. And then there was that terrible hope, that if Charles tried hard enough, they could reclaim something they’d lost. A tiny hope, one he almost didn’t dare admit to, but a vicious one.

He could feel Erik’s cock hard against his stomach and he tried to rub himself against it, satisfied when Erik muffled a low moan against his mouth and his hips jerked forward. His own erection twitched in his pants and Charles ground hard against Erik’s pelvis, gasping at the electric spark of sensation the friction generated. Somehow he managed to shove a hand down between their bodies and palm Erik through his trousers, curving his hand around the thick heat of him and squeezing. 

“Charles ….” Erik said his name like he could taste it, and Charles felt the belt buckle unclasp, then the button of his fly, his metal zipper scraping against the back of his hand as Erik’s power drew it down. Erik’s hands were on his hips; he pushed Charles to the right, and with Erik’s height and strength Charles couldn’t help but follow, letting Erik push him down onto the closed toilet.

“Erik,” he said slowly, “what are you doing?” He felt exposed all of the sudden, his legs splayed and his cock straining at the fabric of his pants, tenting obviously, but he didn’t try to get up.

“I’ve waited eleven years for this,” Erik said. “Don’t spoil it for me.” He leaned over Charles, dragging the hem of his shirt out from where it had been tucked into Charles’ trousers, fingers skimming at last along bare skin as he got down to his knees between Charles’ legs; Charles’ breath caught in his throat and a second later Erik was reaching into his pants, sliding his hand under the elastic waistband of Charles’ underwear and wrapping it around his cock.

Even that simple touch was enough to make Charles shudder, his heart racing as he stared down into Erik’s eyes, then at Erik’s mouth, still reddened from where Charles had bit him earlier. 

“I haven’t — ” Charles began. “I, Erik, I won’t last long, it’s been — ” 

“I know. I don’t care.” Erik pushed Charles’ underwear down under his balls so Charles’ cock was jutting out of his pants, head flushed and leaking pre-come already, pulsing in Erik’s grip. 

Erik didn’t hesitate, has never hesitated. He bent his head and licked his tongue out along the slit, and then again, more firmly this time, his gaze still holding Charles’. Charles remembered all the times past, being in Erik’s head while he did this, the way Erik used to calculate from the minutest shifts in Charles’s expression what Charles wanted, what he liked, how to make him climax. He could tell that was what Erik was thinking now; Erik teased the tip of his tongue at Charles’ frenulum and Charles bit his lip — Erik did it again almost immediately, this time drawing a groan from Charles’ chest, and Charles reached out to slide his fingers into Erik’s hair, short nails dragging against his scalp.

Erik’s mouth when he finally took in Charles’ cock was hot and wet and perfect, Erik’s tongue flat along the underside of Charles’ erection and the suction as he hollowed out his cheeks enough to make Charles grit his teeth to keep himself quiet, throwing out a hand and catching it on the toilet paper roll. Erik bobbed his head in Charles’ lap, taking up a quick and steady rhythm, and before long Charles found himself giving in to the instinct that clawed at his chest. He grasped the back of Erik’s neck, holding him close as he thrust up toward him, abortive little movements that he tried to restrain but couldn’t, and it was only when Erik doesn’t even try to pull away that he let himself surrender entirely.

Erik just let him, taking Charles in to the root every time Charles forced his head down on his cock, Erik’s throat spasming around the thick and swollen head, gagging on it, Charles’ shaft slick with spit, strings of it caught between Erik’s mouth and Charles’ cock, Erik sucking him like somehow that would make up for everything else, his hands on the small of Charles’ back and his nails digging red-hot crescents into Charles’ skin.

“Fuck,” Charles said, expelling the word on a hard breath, losing the grip he had on the toilet paper roll for a second and almost falling to his side, scrabbling for purchase again, the roll spinning and sending long sheets of paper curling toward the floor. 

Erik made a strange sound around Charles’ cock and it took a second for Charles to realize it was a laugh, choked and caught at the base of his throat. The noise sent another sharp thrill down Charles’ spine and he gasped, tangling his hand in Erik’s hair to push his head all the way down until his cock was buried to the root in the glorious heat of Erik’s mouth — he could see the head pressing out against Erik’s cheek for a second when Erik sucked in, Erik’s lips wet and reddened and his eyes dark with want. 

It was the last thing he saw before his own eyes squeezed shut and his thighs tightened, the muscles in his abdomen clenching and unclenching as he came, pushing Erik’s head down and making him swallow it as he pulsed his jizz into Erik’s mouth. But Erik just held on tight to him and took it, gulping around Charles’ cock, gagging again a little, but taking it.

When Charles finally managed to open his eyes again, the tension in his body finally evaporated and the need in his core dulled to a low warmth, Erik was pulling off his cock and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Charles’ come white at the corner of his lips. Charles felt dizzy, half-collapsed there on the airplane toilet seat with his cock out of his pants, slowly softening, his skin buzzing and his mind completely undone. 

“Erik,” he said when Erik started to stand, his voice thick and not like his own. “Let me.” He reached for Erik’s fly, Erik’s cock huge and still clearly outlined beneath the fabric of his trousers, but Erik caught his wrist and batted it away.

“This wasn’t about me,” Erik said. He gave Charles a small, half smile, and for a moment Charles thought he might reach for him again, if only to touch his cheek or slip his hand into his hair. But he just turned to flip on the sink, rinsing his hands under the running water and drying them off on the paper towels. “Here,” Erik said, tearing out a few tissues from the box and passing them to Charles, “clean yourself up. We’re landing soon.”

He was gone long before Charles could piece himself together enough to obey, and when Charles went back out into the cabin Logan was awake and Erik was sitting at the chessboard again, leaned back in his seat and relaxed. When Charles sat, his thighs still weak and shaky, Erik looked as composed as ever, ascot tied loose around his neck and his drink in his hand, still half-empty. 

Once Charles was settled, Erik leaned forward, took a sip of his drink and said, “Your move.”

**Author's Note:**

> [avast! a tumblr!](http://spicedpiano.tumblr.com)


End file.
